Thank you all so much for your comments on Robert's progress entry and the ultrasound entry :) I love reading your comments!
Here I am again at 21 weeks 6 days pregnant. I still can't really believe how quickly it's all going! Some things have prompted me to think about Squidge's birth. I am still undecided on what I am going to do with regards to the whole thing, but I know I have pleeeeenty of time to think about it! I am still thinking that due to Robert being so big, the likelihood that Squidge will be big too is quite high, so a water birth for me is out. I really do not want to repeat what happened with Robert! At the moment that is the only thing I have decided. I may decide to labour until the 2nd stage in water, but I will not be birthing in water. Then came the whole wondering, should I go for another home birth? Or should I seriously think about going into hospital this time?
The thing that scares me most about the idea of a hospital birth is the availability of drugs and interventions. I don't think I would be tempted to use pain relief drugs (I didn't need it with Robert and hopefully won't with Squidge assuming I can practice all the techniques again to refresh myself), but the availability of hormone drips to speed up labour, and so on, scares me as I think I would be unable to stop un-necessary interventions. My labour during the second stage did slow down with Robert and it did get to the point where they were talking about doing something to speed things up. So I'm afraid if something similar happens with Squidge, with everything being there, It'll be harder to resist the pressure from the midwives.
It is something I will have to talk about with Beverley when I see her in a few weeks time, I think I really do need all the information before I can choose properly the best course of action for me. She thinks that I should have a hospital birth, but she has also said they will support me if I decide to have a home birth, unless I develop complications during pregnancy.
On a different note - my eating (I was going to say my diet, but I suddenly thought this would be mis-construed, I am not on "a diet", I would have meant "my diet" in the sense of the things I eat). I really want to get into cooking healthier foods, not necessarily "low fat" foods which I don't believe are necessarily healthier, but ones with all the different minerals and vitamins, proteins, fats, calciums etc. One thing I've heard that you should eat more of in pregnancy is fish and white meats. And to me, when you say "fish" I think of breaded/battered fish, or a tiny piece of fish in a sauce from a boil in the bag thing. So I went ahead and bought some frozen fish fillets! I wanted to do something adventurous with fish, not just the normal things we eat, but something that was easy, yet delicious!
So last night I googled "white fish recipes" and found lots of pies, poached dishes, etc etc. For ease I wanted something baked, and preferably keeping the fish in one whole rather than mashing it up. Although I do like fish pies! But I found a recipe that looked easy and yummy! It required me to fry up (well the recipe said use pre-roasted peppers you get in a jar) a red pepper, and in a small bowl I mixed up some oil, 3 cloves of chopped garlic (I love garlic!!!), some parsley and some breadcrumbs. I rubbed the fish with some oil and paprika, and put them on a baking tray. Added the peppers evenly over the fish, then put the breadcrumb mix ontop of that, then sprinkled the whole lot in a rather generous helping of cheese. Baked for 15 minutes while I boiled up some potatoes with the skin on, and some broccoli, and hey presto, a very delicious fish meal that was done in 30-45 minutes including preperation time! I really want to find some more recipes like this!!! I hate spending too long in the kitchen cooking (although I love cooking!) because it takes me away from time I can spend with Robert. And this is quick and easy, and nicely nutritional!
Another thing I wanted to blog about was the dream I had last night. It was very vivid and quite bizarre.
I was scaling up a climbing tower (the man made ones with the hand and foot holds). It was very verrry tall and the first few times I didn't make it far before I fell. The next time though I made it to the very top, just kept going, determinedly and finally reached up to feel the top of the tower! Someone at the top helped me up onto the top of it, and although I was still in my harness I felt suddenly extremely insecure and scared. They made me look over the edge, and this tower which can't have been more than 1 and a half metres square on the top side, but of course very tall, suddenly felt very wobbly like it was made of foam. As I looked over the edge I felt an insane terror claw into my chest as I saw the ground so very far away, and I clutched hold of the edge of the tower, while sprawled on my belly, and in my dream the tower began to rock. I then woke up.
To use a dream analysis site still leaves me very confused but let's have a go.
Tower
To see a tower in your dream, signifies high hopes and aspirations. If you are looking down from a tower, then it indicates that you have a perceived superiority over others. Your ego is inflated. Alternatively, towers symbolizes the phallus.
To dream that you are climbing a tower, denotes your quest for spirituality and unconscious ideas that may be surfacing.
Height
To dream that you are at a great height, signifies that you have reached one of your highest goals or objectives.
To dream that you are afraid of heights, denotes that you are striving for goals that seem beyond your reach.
Climb
To dream that you are climbing up something (ladder, rope, etc.), signifies that you are trying to or you have overcome a great struggle. It also suggests that your goals are finally within reach. Climbing also means that you have risen to a level of prominence within the social or economic sphere.
Fear
To dream that you feel fear, indicates that your achievements will not be as successful as you had anticipated. You are experiencing anxieties in various aspects of your life. The key to overcoming your fear is to discuss them and deal with them openly.
Soooo... in climbing the tower I am trying to overcome some spiritual or unconscious struggle. I finally succeed in overcoming this struggle but the fear I felt at the top means that this achievement did not bring what I wanted it to bring.
Which... doesn't really make much sense to me.... Ah well, anyone else care to dream analyse? lol
Hmm, as far as the dream goes, I have no idea what it means! A lot of times I find that what seems like a weird, random dream is actually based on something that I had recently read or seen on tv. I do all this analysis and then realise, oh yeah, that happened on the show I watched on telly!
ReplyDeleteAnd how exciting to be half way along already. I do think you have heaps of time to decide what you would like to do for this birth, and talking and reading and asking questions will hopefully lead you to the right answers for you. If you did go for a hospital birth, can you have someone act as advocate for you if you think you might get talked into something you don't want? I know that NZ is probably really different from the UK, but both my hospital births were natural with very little intervention at all, only (necessary) episiotomies. Plus, this labour and birth could be completely different, and any intervention may not be needed at all. Anyway, as you said, you do have heaps of time to decide. :)
You have all the basics of your dream there, it's just putting it together to make sense of it.
ReplyDeleteFear is the dominating subject of an ideal you are walking towards.
You fear failure, you fear things wont go as you want them to (climbing and falling). You will get to your goal but the uncertainty surrounding getting there scares you. You want something to be as you want but have the underlying fear that they wont, this could be because of previous issues.
My guess is this VERY much tied in with all your birth plans. You did have a bad experience with Robert and you subconciously fear something will go wrong with Squidge's birth.
As for hospital births, there will only be pain relief or intervention if YOU AGREE to it. My 3 were hospital births, no pain relief. With Matthew I ended up on an intrevenous drip because my contractions were strong but weren't long enough and they concerned that as I'd been pushing over 2 hours, it was making me stressed and worn out. They weren't pushy and they explained it then gave me the option of if I wanted it or not. The other 2 were as natural as you can get - even if it was in a hospital. These people are here to help you not to cause stress. ((((hugs)))))
Hi, it's me, I still poke about here from time to time :)
ReplyDeleteGood luck with the birth plans, hope you manage to find something you're happy with. I think I'd have similar thoughts about hospital, but it's a tricky decision :( I guess if it were me I'd just weigh up the pros and cons.
On the healthy eating... yays, good for you. I'm still crap at healthy eating and am a total cake-monster :)
The dream! Wow! Although dream dictionaries always seem to be a bit ridiculous.
"To dream that you feel fear, indicates that your achievements will not be as successful as you had anticipated."
That seems like a load of nonsense. For one thing, fear can be about all sort of things, not just achievements. It strikes me that feeling fear in a dream is probably just the representation of some real life fear, whatever that might be. Perhaps you need to probe the dream and work out what you're really afraid of?
Also sometimes dreams are just combinations of ideas all jumbled up and don't really mean anything at all. I had a dream last night that involved a bath tub and roleplaying James Bond, and I'm convinced it had no meaning other than I've still got to ring my landlady to get our pipes fixed and I've been roleplaying a lot lately.
I've had similar sorts of dreams, and I think often they're about general fears of inadequacy - worrying that you're not going to match up to whatever standard you feel you need to be. I also think the fear of heights thing might be about feeling scared about a situation you are already in... the scariest thing about heights for me is not getting up there but getting down again. It could well be a pregnancy thing... You're kind of halfway there now, and you've got no choice but to continue. Not saying you're terrified or anything, just that it's quite a big scary thing bringing a new child into the world and any hidden anxiety, however small a worry it is in daylight when things are good, might still be there in your subconscious to scare you while you sleep.